AT&T

There has been more interest in ITEXPO Fall 2008, Los Angeles, CA September 16-18 than any other Internet Telephony Conference & Expo I can remember in recent years. It seems people are beginning to realize this show is the only major IP communications event left -- it is growing quickly and it draws attendees from around the world.

If you are looking to reach service providers, enterprise customers, SMBs, resellers or the communications industry at large -- you should consider being at this show.

A participating companies list I picked up from an upcoming TMC press release is as follows but really, every important company in telecom will be represented in multiple ways. (please do not get offended if your company is not here. If I added all participating companies -- my readers would get fired because they would spend their work day trying to get through it all -- instead of getting their jobs done).

Did you know Caller-ID information is still potentially being sent -- even when Called-ID is blocked? If you have an Asterisk box and use certain SIP trunking providers, you can actually recover Caller-ID information that was not supposed to be sent in the first place.

Flowroute is one SIP trunking provider which sends Caller-ID and other information with calls.

According to the video above, you need to take the call information from such a service provider, strip out the privacy bits and forward the number.

You then take the configuration information, copy it into Asterisk and make some modifications using VI or other visual editor.

You then forward the call to another phone number and voila, the private call becomes a non-private call.

Isn't telecom cool? For more information on geeky things like this and also tips on how to make money when developing telecom apps, be sure to be at the the Communications Developer Conference September 16-18, 2008 in LA. See you there.

This past week has had me thinking a great deal about telecom and how it is evolving. I have come to some conclusions worth sharing. The first is that customers could care less about walled gardens. Sure, we hear complaints from some about how walled gardens are bad - but consumers don't care.

If you were wondering whether your favorite Starbucks will be one of the 600 stores the company is about to close, the entire list (PDF) of stores to be closed has been made available.

California will see just under 90 stores shut down while Florida and Texas just under 60. TMC's home state of Connecticut will lose five stores -- the closest is about ten miles away from TMC and a store I have never visited. Digium will lose one store in its home city of Huntsville, Al (Madison Square Mall), Manhattan will lose six and Southhampton is the only location in the prestigious Hamtons to be whacked. Expect stores to close early next year.

There have been petitions circulaing to save specific locations and government officials are trying to persuade the company not to shut certain stores.

What I find amazing about these incidents is that many used to complian that Starbucks killed off the local coffee shop and made coffeee a chain-like experience.

New York's newest carrier neutral data center is CRG West's 32americas facility located at 32 Avenue of the Americas. The 50,000 square foot facility will deliver the power and peering opportunities companies need to reduce costs and manage their network.

You may recall an earluier entry about CRG West's One Wilshire building.

CRG West's new 50,000 square foot New York colocation facility offers up to 150 Watts/SF and has connectivity to the building's existing meet-me room which has over 50 carriers, networks and service providers.

Customers can license single 7-foot cabinets or up to 10,000 square feet of customized cage space.

One of the key advantages to the New York colocation site is its ease of geographic access. The facility is centrally located in New York City and has close access to the subway system.

What is it about the iPhone that makes it so special that people will stand in line for it for hours on end? I think I may know. I have been trying to get one of these things for about a week and I have driven over 30 minutes looking for AT&T stores that carry this gadget. For the record, this faster iPhone is being purchased for TMC Labs and as president of TMC I thought a perk would be to buy the device.

I have been seeing an interesting trend in the communications space. In the last 2-3 years, more and more companies who used to focus on service providers have expanded their focus into the call center space. Acme Packet and NextPoint are a few examples of such companies. This is not so surprising mind you when you realize how remote agents resemble service provider customers and the theing they have in common is the need for an SBC.

In addition there has been growth in the hosted contact center market and as more service providers have become interested in providing such services worldwide they need to work with call center vendors who can supply them with the solutions they need.

I have been pretty silent about what has happened with Pulvermedia and the VON events because frankly, everyone else seemed to be covering the fact that the events are no longer taking place.

Also, TMC used to compete head to head with thee VON events so I thought it poor taste to discuss their demise. Having said that, I was at a recent event where I heard horror stories of people showing up for VON Amsterdam -- only to find out there was no VON Amsterdam. Commenters in the blogosphere have echoed the same sentiments.

So I wanted to make sure I went on record letting people in the communications industry know that Pulvermedia is shut down.